A Few Signs of Froth Do Not a Bubble Make — THIS may seem familiar: A pair of venture capital firms agree to pay $26 million for a modest-size stake in a start-up that has yet to earn a penny. A third plunks down more than $12 million for a sliver of a company started by a college kid so young he cannot legally be served at a bar.

Apple MacBook — Introduction — MacBook — Quick specs: Intel Core Duo T2500 CPU, 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, Intel GMA950 graphics — Price as configured: US$1,299 (shop for this item) — We all knew it was coming and we had a pretty good idea about what form it would be arriving in.

Warning from Apple: don't put our laptops on your lap — We've heard the stories about overheating MacBook Pros, and have even heard that Apple has quietly updated the line's firmware to resolve the problem. However, the company apparently still doesn't want to take any chances on users getting …

Reclusive Linux founder opens up — (CNN) — Portland, Oregon is the unlikely capital of a global software revolution. The revolution is called Open Source. And its leader? Linus Torvalds, the reclusive founder of Linux. — Linux is the free software code developed by a global community of programmers.

Symantec Sues Microsoft to Stop Vista — Company claims Microsoft is wrongfully using its Veritas storage technology in the next version of Windows. — Symantec has asked a U.S. court to order a halt to the development of Windows Vista, claiming that its rival is wrongfully incorporating …

Joystiq Interview: Epic's Cliff Bleszinski — To help promote the MTV2 special on Gears of War airing tonight, Microsoft was facilitating some quick phone interviews with the game's lead designer, Cliff Bleszinski (aka CliffyB). We got his thoughts on the game's reception at E3 …

Yahoo Tests Stock Widgets for Blogs — Yahoo is testing a new program that allows any publisher - especially bloggers - to put real-time stock quotes and charts on their sites. I have been briefed on the program by the Yahoo Finance team. A public beta is expected in early June.

Around the World in 23 Days — When Jules Verne wrote the scifi classic Around the World in 80 Days, the excitement and challenge was that technology could allow Phineas Phogg to travel at such breath-taking speed. When Rick Segal and I circumnavigate the globe in 23 days this August …

vpod.tv Raises $5.1 Million: First Look — I mentioned vpod.tv, a startup headquartered in Paris and Madrid, in my Innovate 2006 roundup. Today they are announcing a $5.1 million Series A round, led by Frédéric Humbert of Innovacom. — vpod is a "best of class" service …

Blue Pearl Life Headsets — Whoever said that diamonds are girls best friend has obviously not laid eyes on ProfitWing 's BluePearls "Life" headset which will appeal to the atheistic sense of the fairer sex. This girly Bluetooth headset weighs about 7.9 grams and has a talk time of up to 18 hours.

DIY Phone Club Channels PC Past — Matt Hamrick hates standard-issue mobile phones almost as much as he loves tinkering with them to make them better. — The software security expert reckons he's spent around $3,000 over the past two years trying to get his calendar and e-mail to sync between his Apple computer and his phone.

SAP boss names three potential US buyers — SAP, the world's biggest business software group, is open to an acquisition by US technology groups, according to its chairman. — Hasso Plattner, supervisory board chief at the German group, said in an interview with FT Deutschland …

Google, Yahoo! and MSN: Property Size-up — By popular demand, I've gone through several Hitwise categories to compile the table below that shows where Google, Yahoo! and MSN properties stack up in their respective categories. The percentages represented in the right hand column …

One Month of Torrents is Worth More Than The GDP of France — We have all heard how the RIAA is suing people over piracy, giving figures such as "300 million dollars a year" in lost revenues due to piracy. However, what you might not have heard is that this figure is actually lowballed - they are actually losing significantly more!

Google's Non-Search Properties Still Struggling — Outside of search, Google is not doing so hot. The Hitwise blog offers the table at right, which shows the top 20 Google domains, broken down by share of visitors. As you'd expect, the main Google search page gets nearly 80% of Google's traffic.

Town Hall: Philip Getting Friendly With the Feds — At a packed town hall meeting with live Skype call-in as well as typed text in-world, SL chief executive Philip Linden, in reply to a query from Second Life club owner Trader1 Whiplash, responded to residents' concerns about repeated grid-grashing …

I Enjoy Particularly Rigorous Specs — James E. Robinson III has a confession to make: … I have evolved into a spec-reading, spec-writing, specs-crazed dork during my time on the RSS Advisory Board. I now take pride in my personal compliance with RFC 2119, both in the documentation that I write and in everyday conversation.